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Legal arguments, like most things in life, reward narrative over truth. “Truth” is an unbelievably high bar to pass – even basic ideas like confidence level are
by mwsherman 12y ago
Legal arguments, like most things in life, reward narrative over truth. “Truth” is an unbelievably high bar to pass – even basic ideas like confidence level are beyond the understanding of the legal system.
“Beyond a reasonable doubt” is actually a decent epistemic standard. The problem is that juries and judges are not exposed to the information that would lead to reasonable doubt in these cases.
So basic epistemology already makes bad outcomes likely. Add the incentives (political, organizational) in cases like these, and terrible things happen.
- smsm42 12y agoThe problem is the incentives go to one side (winning the case) without a counterbalance incentive (being not punished for misconduct). If police misconduct such as perjury and fraud routinely led to grave consequences for the person doing it, the balance of the incentives would be closer to what it needs to be. But the Blue Wall[1] and general reluctance of the justice system to punish their own, prevents it from happening. Even when the fraud is discovered, the perpetrators frequently are not sanctioned in any way, the worst that happens is that convictions get thrown out, but that does not create counter-incentive. Thus, no balance. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_wall_of_silence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_wall_of_silence